


Oktena

by rawkfemme



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Resolutions add-on, spider warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 08:58:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11506035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rawkfemme/pseuds/rawkfemme
Summary: Prompt provided by Helen8462: There is something about a senior officer that we don't know about, and its just come to light.As it turns out, Chakotay has a secret.





	Oktena

The warm breeze lifted the hem of Kathryn’s pale pink dress as she sat, legs outstretched, under the shade of alien arbor. The soft cotton flitted and danced over the bare skin of her calves as she leaned her head back against the rough bark behind her. Kathryn sighed and closed her eyes, letting the floral scent of an alien spring waft over her. The padd containing a book that B’Elanna had given her fell to her lap.  This was the first time since she’d been on new Earth that she felt this relaxed. The anxiety of her research still pricked at the back of her mind, and she worried about their future if she and Chakotay were to remain on the planet, but taking an hour for herself and reading a trashy novel under a tree that could almost be terran was peaceful.  She could almost imagine that she was at home.

That’s when she heard it.  At first she wasn’t sure what the scraping sound emanating from the shelter was.  Was Chakotay rearranging?  But a string of heated foreign phrases and the crash of pottery hitting the floor convinced her to check on him.  The grass was soft and cool on the soles of her bare feet as Kathryn crossed briskly back to their house. But as she stepped onto the smooth manufactured surface of the threshold her steps stopped short and her brow wrinkled in confusion.

Chakotay, her stalwart supporter, was standing straight against the far wall of the shelter’s main room. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, and his breathing was heavy and ragged. His eyes, cold and staring, didn’t break their focused gaze as Kathryn entered. His attention was fully directed to the opposite wall.

As Kathryn pulled her scrutiny from Chakotay’s curious condition, her eyes swept the room.  Their main table had been pushed across the room and a chair lay on its side. Colorful sands in pinks and reds littered the floor, as if one of Chakotay’s paintings had been overturned.  The partially completed canvas peeking out from under the kitchenette counter confirmed that theory.

As she looked around, Kathryn wished she had a phaser tucked into the pocket of her dress.  Whatever had caused such a struggle may still be there. Looking across the room to the wall that held Chakotay’s rapt attention, Kathryn was flooded with relief. On the wall, at just slightly about her head height was a black, fuzzy, palm-sized, alien arachnid.  As it reached out one hairy leg and stated to scuttle up the wall, Chakotay sucked in a terrified, hissing breath.  Looking back at him, Kathryn crinkled her brow, seeking an explanation for his consternation. 

“Oktena,” came Chakotay’s brief response to Kathryn’s look of inquiry.

“Oktena?”

“Trickster god.”

Whatever this ‘Oktena’ was to Chakotay had clearly spooked him.  Keeping one eye on their unexpected and unwelcome visitor, Kathryn crossed to their supply cabinet and retrieved a tricorder.  Flipping it open, she started a scan of Oktena. There was no venom present.  She, as the scan informed Kathryn, was as harmless as a Daddy Long Legs.  Kathryn flipped the tricorder shut, but as she did, the sound of the housing snapping closed caused Oktena to scurry a few inches further up the wall. 

“Ahh, Kathryn!” Chakotay was bursting with nervous energy and was attempting to slowly inch further away across the wall his back was pressed to.

“It’s alright. She’s harmless.” Kathryn tried to be reassuring, but seeing her brawny first officer petrified of an insect was almost amusing. However, Kathryn needed to trap this spider to confirm that it wasn’t part of the species that infected them.  She might not be quick enough to catch it by hand, and didn’t want to risk harming the innocent spider in too tight a grip.  Catching Oktena was a mission that was going to prove difficult if Chakotay continued to flinch every time the spider moved.

“Chakotay, it’s just a harmless spider.  For someone who spends as much time outdoors as you I’d thought you’d have been used to them.” Kathryn crossed slowly to the kitchenette to retrieve a bowl, never taking her eyes off of Oktena, lest she scamper away.

“It’s not that...oh Gods,” Chakotay stammered and backed three steps further away as Oktena scurried out of Kathryn’s reach during an attempt at capture. “It started with my sister.”

“Sekaya, right?” Kathryn asked as she slowly crept back up on the fuzzy black interloper.

“That’s right. After grandfather told us the legend of Oktena and her legion of spawn who...” Chakotay paused and shut his eyes as Kathryn made another capture attempt.  “...who play tricks and place hexes on anyone who offends them, Sekaya took to making dozens of spider toys and leaving them around for me to find.  The shower, my lunch, my pillow, even once on my face while I was napping.”

Kathryn turned to look at Chakotay.  Her instinct was to giggle at the lighthearted nature of his story.  It sounded like the type of thing she and Phoebe would have pulled on each other. But when she saw him, brow knit in fear, sweat rolling down his temples, fists clenched and him trying to find a way to back slowly out of the room, she realized that it was more than just his sisters ribbing that had terrified him.  There was something else.

“Kathryn, it’s moving.”

While Kathryn’s back was turned, Oktena had crawled off the wall and onto the floor, and was trying to scurry to safety under the kitchenette counter. Flipping the clear bowl upside down, Kathryn deftly placed it over the scampering spider, trapping it in a transparent prison. After sliding a piece of thin polymer sheeting between the bowl and the floor, Kathryn flipped the bowl right side up, with the polymer acting as a lid. Oktena’s fuzzy legs tapped on the inside surface of the bowl as she circled trying to find an escape route.

Bringing the bowl to her work station, Kathryn pulled the lid of the bowl back just enough to slip in the narrow tube of the extraction sampler. Kathryn took a small sample of Oktena’s blood and replaced the lid. After putting the sample in the spectrometer, all that was left to do was await the results.

Soon, she felt Chakotay standing beside her, his breathing heavy and his body tense.  Lifting the bowl from the table with shaking hands, he managed to hold the lid firmly in place. Kathryn heard him murmur a few words in a language that she didn’t understand.  The spectrometer dinged and Kathryn turned to read the display.

“Damn. Oktena won’t be able to help us.”

Chakotay didn’t say anything in response as he turned with the bowl and walked slowly out the door.  Kathryn followed him as he crossed their small yard and into the shadow of the forest. Soon he stopped in a clearing and knelt on the ground, placing the bowl and the polymer sheet lid upside down in front of him.  The weight of the bowl compressed the grass and fallen leaves beneath it. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Chakotay placed both hands on the bowl.  Slowly, he lifted the far brim of the bowl off of the lid and Oktena scurried away, deep into the foliage.  Chakotay opened his eyes and stood, taking a deep, cleansing breath and lifting the bowl and lid as he rose. He turned and saw Kathryn behind him, who was watching with rapt fascination.

“That was very brave, Chakotay.”

“The best way to conquer a fear is to face it, right?”

“I suppose it is.”

Chakotay had crossed to Kathryn and was now standing so close that she could feel the warmth of his body. 

“Chakotay, what else happened with Sekaya?  It wasn’t just toy spiders that made you so afraid.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Chakotay averted his eyes and resumed walking with Kathryn keeping pace at his side.  “They toys weren’t frightening, only momentarily startling.  More than anything, they were annoying.  My kid sister was always trying to get my goat. So I figured I teach her a lesson.”

By now, Kathryn and Chakotay were near the shelter.  Kathryn took his hand and led him to the tree that she’d been resting under earlier.  The mess inside could wait.  He was too important.

“On one of our regular trips into the foothills with our father,” Chakotay continued, “I’d found a tarantula. Non-venomous, but scary enough for a kid. I placed it in Sekaya’s sleeping bag, and waited.”  Dropping his head, Chakotay sighed.  “But this wasn’t a harmless terran tarantula.  Its bite sent Sekaya into a reaction that she almost didn’t recover from.  She nearly died because I played a prank on her, miles from any medical assistance.” Chakotay’s eyes were brimming with tears.  “We never carried anti-venom.  Apparently the breed would run away when people were near.  But I trapped it, and it panicked.”

“That was an apology earlier.  For when I trapped Oktena in the bowl.”

“Yes. I had to apologize for us trapping her, even it was necessary.”

“And Sekaya, she did fully recover?”

“Yes. We were lucky. A group of naturalists were on a foraging trip nearby and had the supplies to treat her.  She was in so much pain, and it was my fault. Watching her, I wanted to run and hide. But our father made me stay and help; hold her hand, wipe her brow, whatever she needed. 

“When I was finally able to sleep, after she was safe.  Oktena haunted me. For months, that spider was in my dreams; hunting, biting, making me pay for what I did.”

“The trickster god hexed you.”

“I supposed she did.  Ever since then, well, let’s just say spiders and I tend to shy away from each other.”

“Chakotay, you were just a child. It was an accident.”

“True, and Sekaya says that she doesn’t remember the pain, or really much of what happened. She doesn’t blame me.”

“But you still do.” Kathryn placed her hand on his chest and felt Chakotay’s racing heartbeat.

“Of course. She trusted me, and I hurt her.  She loved me and I let her down.”

There were no words that Kathryn could find to comfort him.  Instead, she lowered them both to sit under the ancient tree.  Shoulder to shoulder, they sat and watched the yellow dwarf sun dip below distant mountains. As the sky started to darken and the air began to cool, Chakotay wrapped his arm around Kathryn in a gesture of comfort and warmth.  Soon, the sky turned from copper to lapisAC to navy, sprinkled with stars like decoration on the inside of an overturned bowl.

As Kathryn relaxed and leaned in to Chakotay, she felt his lips whisper softly into her hair. The words were foreign, but now familiar. But sitting in his arms, feeling the rise and fall of his chest and the now-calm beat of his heart, for the first time since they’d been her, Kathryn didn’t feel trapped.  She was home.


End file.
